Why would anyone want a "start" button that completely changes their context and covers up what they were doing?

Windows is barely functional enough as it is for getting real work done, with its insane raise-on-focus making it almost impossible to look at two applications simultaneously (try reading from one large window while typing into another one, without two screens) - but Metro makes it fucking unusable. Nobody asked for it, and clearly, from the sales, nobody wants it.

...the Escape key is in the right position now. I avoided Thinkpads for years, simply because the Escape key was on the line /above/ the function keys. The moment they released the Thinkpad Edge series, with Esc in the correct position, I bought one.

We still don't call them cookies, no matter how much American baked-goods vendors try to shove the term down our throats.

Alternatively, it is the salary of a high-level programmer who is willing to take a pay-cut in order to avoid daily commuting, pair-programming, stand-up meetings, team-building weekends, unpaid overtime, Six Sigma, and all the other bullshit that comes with high-paying jobs in the corporate world.

I don't think there's anything wrong with mocking propaganda. Propaganda deserves to be mocked, it is often the best way of dealing with it (even in Western countries).

Yes, the situation in North Korea is terrible, but remember many Asian countries like to maintain "face" (a thoroughly ridiculous concept) and embarrassing dictatorships like this can be particularly effective.

Why would they do that? They don't expect tips.

No-one tips me in my day-to-day job, why are wait-staff so special?

You could just make sure that employers pay their staff properly, and get rid of the stupid custom of tipping.

I'm so glad I live in a country where I don't ever need to do that.

Free education.

I'm using it. I couldn't stand Gnome 3, and still can't.

Both XFCE and KDE had trouble with my laptop switching between either only its own monitor, or its monitor plus an external screen, and Gnome was the only thing that worked properly, so I spent a lot of time getting fallback mode working much like Gnome 2 did.

...why it is necessary to have 3d graphics to run a desktop. It shouldn't be mandatory, and there should be a way to switch all this crap off, because I definitely have no need for it.

As it stands, it's impossible to use Gnome 3 when using NX. The only option is to fall back to classic mode, which allegedly might be removed from future releases.

...the much touted iOS anti-piracy measures are the main thing preventing the Humble Bundle model from working on iPhones and iPads. Well, unless they wanted to give a huge, unwarranted cut to Apple, of course.

...more Cult of Management techniques being inflicted on the world.

Not really. Russia is a very, very big country.

Hell, I've seen some bus trips across Turkey into neighbouring countries that'll do 1600km in roughly two days or so. These would be rather short compared to what is probably required in some areas of Russia.

...that makes it worth $300 anyway? No screen, only 16Gb storage ... it doesn't seem like an overly complicated device.

In Gnome Classic, the panel is still there. You have to hold down Alt when dragging menu items onto it. Dumb decision, but it does still work.

The tray is gone, but it has been replaced with the "Indicator Applet". Add one of those to your panel, and Rhythmbox will show up under the audio menu.

If you run notify-osd, all alerts go to that - they appear on my screen in a black bubble that appears in the top-right and then disappears after a few seconds. I may be running a patched version, however, I can't remember anymore.

The differences in Gnome Classic take a little while to get used to, but I'm over the hump now, and it's working every bit as well as Gnome 2 used to.